Rita looked disparagingly at Luna.

“I’m guessing your father runs some stupid little village newsletter?” she said. “Probably, Twenty-Five Ways to Mingle With Muggles and the dates of the next Bring and Fly Sale?”

“No,” said Luna, dipping her onion back into her Gillywater, “he’s the editor of The Quibbler.”

Rita snorted so loudly that people at a nearby table looked round in alarm.

“‘Important stories he thinks the public needs to know,’ eh?” she said witheringly. “I could manure my garden with the contents of that rag.”

“Well, this is your chance to raise the tone of it a bit, isn’t it?” said Hermione pleasantly. “Luna says her father’s quite happy to take Harry’s interview. That’s who’ll be publishing it.”

Rita stared at them both for a moment, then let out a great whoop of laughter.

“The Quibbler!” she said, cackling. “You think people will take him seriously if he’s published in The Quibbler?”

“Some people won’t,” said Hermione in a level voice. “But the Daily Prophet’s version of the Azkaban breakout had some gaping holes in it. I think a lot of people will be wondering whether there isn’t a better explanation of what happened, and if there’s an alternative story available, even if it is published in a—” she glanced sideways at Luna, “in a—well, an unusual magazine—I think they might be rather keen to read it.”

Rita didn’t say anything for a while, but eyed Hermione shrewdly, her head a little to one side.

“All right, let’s say for a moment I’ll do it,” she said abruptly. “What kind of fee am I going to get?”

“I don’t think Daddy exactly pays people to write for the magazine,” said Luna dreamily. “They do it because it’s an honour and, of course, to see their names in print.”

Rita Skeeter looked as though the taste of Stinksap was strong in her mouth again as she rounded on Hermione.

“I’m supposed to do this for free?”

“Well, yes,” said Hermione calmly, taking a sip of her drink. “Otherwise, as you very well know, I will inform the authorities that you are an unregistered Animagus. Of course, the Prophet might give you rather a lot for an insider’s account of life in Azkaban.”

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The Quick-Quotes Quill was actually in her hand and halfway to her mouth when the rapturous expression on her face died.	\|	Rita looked as though she would have liked nothing better than to seize the paper umbrella sticking out of Hermione’s drink and thrust it up her nose.

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